


The One Where Ben Solo Works At Disneyworld

by TourmalineGreen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Florida, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, DisneyWorld, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-03 02:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14559228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineGreen/pseuds/TourmalineGreen
Summary: When the mask goes on—when it closes around his eyes, tunnels his vision, makes his breath echo in the contained space like he’s hiding in a cave—Ben Solo becomes someone else entirely. [No longer updating!]





	1. Chapter 1

When the mask goes on—when it closes around his eyes, tunnels his vision, makes his breath echo in the contained space like he’s hiding in a cave—Ben Solo becomes someone else entirely.

The mask conceals his eyes: Hazel-ish, brown, unremarkable, he thinks. It conceals his overlong dark brown hair and his prominent ears. It conceals every feature on his face, from his moles to his beakish nose, the crookedness of his teeth, everything.

And as much as he dislikes the feeling of being contained, being unable to see, he revels in the anonymity of it. The power.

And most of all, the way it—along with the costume—makes him stand up straighter, walk a little taller, curl his fists in and strut. It’s so different from how he normally walks and stands, and to be honest, the first few weeks on the job left him with a sore back and aching wrists from all the clenching and skulking. But after…

Ben adjusts the rough-woven cowl about his shoulders, tucking his hair back behind his ears and smoothing a wide, flat palm across the flat-braided hair across the top of his head. He’d learned that trick from Chewbacca, a way to keep long hair out of his eyes while in-costume. Or rather, Joonas, the former basketball player who was Chewbacca at the moment. He’d also learned how to eat licorice that tasted like salt and suffering, how to swear in Finnish, and what, exactly, the purpose of a sauna was.

Taking a deep breath, Ben tugged and fussed with the rest of his costume. The character, Kylo Ren, wore long black robes in the film—double-layer, made of raw silk and rough cotton and sweeping down to the toes of his thick-soled black boots. They raised his already considerable height even taller, so he could tower over just about any of the guests who came through. Anyone, really, except, of course, Joonas.

As different as Joonas was from the towering, hairy alien character that he portrayed, Ben Solo was, if at all possible, even more distinct.

For one thing, he wasn’t aligned with the forces of darkness, or prone to fits of rage, like the character was in the movies. Kylo Ren lives on a spaceship; Ben Solo lives in a studio flat above a retiree’s garage. Kylo Ren wears all black; Ben Solo wears faded, ten-year-old concert t-shirts and jeans. Kylo Ren wears a chrome-detailed black mask; Ben Solo wears his dad’s old aviators. Kylo Ren is heir to a galactic legacy, with the weight of a magical space-wizard bloodline running through his veins; Ben Solo has mostly caffeine running through his veins.

Oh: And there’s more, too.

Because for some reason—some inexplicable reason, that Ben doesn’t entirely get, because he’s not really into guys for the most part—people are absolutely wild for Kylo Ren.

In fact, he’s one of the most popular of the meet-and-greet options, here at the park.

People stand in line for hours, pay money to be menaced and threatened and loomed over in front of a starry backdrop that mimics a panel of the wall on one of the spaceships from the film. People file in, with their hands clasped and their faces alit with eager glee, just to the pleasure of listening to Ben Solo’s voice through a voice-changer as he repeats familiar lines from the film, admonishes them for their insurrections, entreats them to join him in wiping out the galactic resistance. They willingly let him get all up in their face, too. In fact, for most of them the smiles and… blushes, even… get wider, brighter, more eager, the more threatening and in-character he gets.

Ben doesn’t get it at all.

Then one day, when he’s off-set and in the cast area, he takes his mask off and enjoys a drink of his third iced americano of the day, sitting in front of the little fan as it blows cool air onto his face.

“You know, you’re really quite a find,” Poe Dameron—one of the other cast members, who works down at the Flight Academy area—says. “I bet they begged you to take this when you came in and auditioned.”

Ben shrugs. “It’s work.”

Poe gives him a look. “So, tell me… guy-to-guy… you ever… get to take the costume home? Use it for a little…”

His voice trails off. And Ben just looks at him, somewhat blankly.

“No,” he says slowly, not entirely understanding. “Everything’s stored on-site, you know that. It has to be laundered.”

Poe’s indecipherable look intensifies. “C’mon, man. You’re telling me you’ve never, not once, used all that… Kylo Ren thing, on a woman?”

Ben laughs out loud at this, raking a hand back through the sweat-soaked hair above his ears, the pieces that aren’t braided down. “What? No. Who’d want that?”

Poe’s look goes up to eleven. “Are you joking right now?”

“No, I’m not—“

“Because, buddy, I hate to break it to you, but just about every girl that comes through here? Yeah, they’re all turned on.”

Ben laughs again, but it very quickly fades when he realizes that Poe is 100% dead serious.

“Ladies love a bad boy, Ben! The whole outfit, the mask, the black? You’re honestly telling me—“

“Back in five, Ben!” one of the other cast members calls out, and Ben takes a drink from his now watered down americano.

“I gotta use the can,” he says, mostly because it’s true, but also because he just can’t quite… process what Poe has just said.

All those times, when a guest looked up at him and replied to his growl of a voice with a breathless response…

All those times, when an guest eyed his prop lightsaber clipped to his belt…

All those times, when he backed them up against the wall, asked them to ‘submit to the superior power of the Dark Side…’

They were… maybe… into it?

This is a lot to process. And when Ben puts the mask back on, and adjusts his posture and his stance and gets back in the zone, he heads back out there with a new, very broadened horizons.

Holy shit.

People are attracted to Kylo Ren.

Like… really, really fucking attracted. Ben sweats as they eye him up and down, he deepens his voice and their eyes dart to his crotch, covered in leather pants and layers of majestic but awkward robes. He extends his hand in menace, calling upon the forces of darkness, and even from behind the mask he can see a woman’s pupils dilate. One of them even mutters, ‘choke me daddy’ and Ben just about trips on his cloak.

Holy shit.

This is a revelation.

And Ben gets… unexpectedly into it. Oh, not in the ways that will jeopardize his job, of course. He never crosses a line, never touches a guest, never does anything, anything that could be misconstrued. But he starts picking up on the clues, subtle and… otherwise. He starts learning how to move, where to stand, what to say. And the queue outside gets longer and longer.

And it would all be fun, if it wasn’t such a stark contrast to his actual real life.

Because when the day is done, and he takes off the heavy robes and the mask and washes in the staff showers and takes the braids out of his hair, he’s just Ben again. Tall and gangly and awkward. Overlooked by pretty much all of the guests who would’ve otherwise been swooning and sweating under his mask-veiled gaze. He gets his clean clothes on and his jacket and walks out the staff entrance with his water bottle, drawing minimal attention. Heading home.

Outside, out of costume, nobody knows who he is at all. He starts looking at random places—in line for coffee on the way in, or in the frozen foods aisle of the local grocery store, or waiting to renew his license at the DMV—wondering if any of these people stared at his body or tried to see his junk or wanted him to choke them.

No, not him. Kylo Ren.

Ben Solo wonders, and he watches, and he observes.

He doesn’t go up to girls like that—doesn’t assume that Kylo Ren is really, truly, what they’d want. Is it? Poe seemed sure that some women would, but… Ben’s nice. He likes taking a girl out to dinner and a movie, buying her flowers, watching the stars. Not… choking, or menacing, or threatening. Those things are… some other, pretend part of him. Not him. Even if he can do the voice really freakishly well, and, okay, even if his build does physically resemble the actor who plays Kylo Ren in the movies. One night, Ben googles the actor and wonders if he’s encountered this… problem.

Well. He’s married. So, Ben supposes, he probably hasn’t.

Dating as Ben is a challenge, though. He tries out online dating, tries going with the girls his friends recommend, but… it just never feels right.

Then one day, he’s looking through those narrow, smoke-filtered eyes, ready to do his job like every day before, and everything suddenly changes.

“Get a picture, Rey!”

The brown-haired girl’s friends urge her forward, laughing as she blushes at their insistence. Ben-as-Kylo stalks towards her, trusting his intuition; it hasn’t led him astray yet, but she feels… different, somehow. She’s cute: about five-seven, wearing a sundress covered in a scattering of the little round orange-and-white robot from the films, her hair up in three buns.

“Oh my god, stop!” Rey says back to her friends as they push her into Ben’s field of view.

Ben notices the others: A blonde, with her hair up in two buns on either side of her head; two girls with dark hair and matching pendants; a fourth girl, hanging back, with her phone raised, taking video of the whole thing.

Rey turns back to them and hisses, over her shoulder, “Okay! Okay! Jess are you filming this?”

“For posterity!” the fourth woman says, grinning.

Ben smiles behind his mask. This is going to be fun.

“You,” he says, pitching his voice low, letting the burr of the voice-changer turn it into the usual gravely tone that Kylo is known for. “I sense great power in you.”

The girls with the necklaces—sisters, if Ben had to guess—giggle and one of them covers her face with her hands. Rey just looks up at him, steeling her gaze, and Ben knows, he knows she can’t see his eyes behind the mask, but…

“Do you, now?” Rey says.

“Yes,” Ben continues, stalking around her. “If you would but join me… together, we could rule the galaxy…”

“Mm, I’d have to look at my schedule,” she says calmly. “Maybe, next Tuesday? Does that work for you?”

Ben can’t do the voice if he’s smiling. He adjusts his face, and circles around her, a little too close for comfort. She doesn’t even budge.

“You don’t know the potential within your veins,” he says. “The power, that we could unleash.”

Rey looks up at him again, batting her lashes. “Ooh, tell me more about your unleashed power, Mister Ren, sir.”

Ben actually laughs at this. He laughs—and Kylo Ren isn’t supposed to laugh. Shit. He quickly turns away, turning the noise into a growl of frustration. He flexes, clenching his hands, gathering his wits back together. This girl is… she’s cute. And she’s trouble. He can’t keep it at all together around her.

“Will you join me, then?” he implores her, turning back to face her, extending his hand.

Rey looks down at the proffered, gloved hand. For the briefest of moments, her countenance seems… conflicted. Ben feels a strange sort of hope stir in his heart. She’s going to take his hand. She’s going to touch him, accept his offer—

“Miss, no touching, please,” the cast member dressed in the imperial uniform says.

And then they finish the photo op, and then she’s gone—looking back at him with one curious look.

Ben wonders just how many women in this town are named Rey.

Because he has to see her again.

Nothing will stand in his way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've reached the point in my life where I just need to admit that every one-shot I write is probably going to end up being at least three chapters... but this is just so fun to write! Enjoy, everyone.

**** It’s fruitless, he thinks, to keep searching for her everywhere. 

Ben knows this. Rationally he knows this, because the woman, Rey, she’d had a bright and clear English accent. Something less than common in the greater Orlando metropolitan area. It doesn’t stop him, however, from turning his head and looking just a little bit longer, every time he sees a woman who matches her build, every time he sees the sweep of long brown hair, hears a laugh that might just be hers. 

It isn’t. 

No matter how hard he looks, he doesn’t see her. 

And he’s almost, almost resigned himself to the fact that she’d likely been an out-of-town guest, like so many are to the park, when he’s in line at the Starbucks inside of his local Publix, and he hears her. 

He hears her. Right behind him. 

Talking to a friend about… Ben can’t even process it, what the words are. He hears her. 

Rey. 

The line moves forward, and Ben’s so absolutely thunderstruck by the sheer incalculable odds of this occurrence that he doesn’t even step forward. 

Which, of course, causes her to step around him, and peer up at him with those eyes that are even more beautiful when he’s not seeing them through Kylo Ren’s mask. Her hair is down now, just a bit of it pulled back from her face, instead of up in the three buns, and instead of the cute sundress she’s wearing a University of Florida sweatshirt that looks like it’s seen better days, and a pair of cutoff jean shorts and cute yellow tennis shoes...

“Excuse me?” she says. “The line’s moved.”

“The… oh!” Ben snaps back to reality, and takes a quick step forward. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Rey replies. “You must really need the caffeine.”

“Yeah,” he hears himself say. 

Because now that the reality of it has sunk in, Ben has no idea, none at all, what he’s supposed to do. Fate, or the universe, or… fuck it, the  _ Force _ , has thrown her in his path again. Like he’s always wanted. It’s brought them together, here, in this Publix, for reasons unknown. 

Ben is so completely screwed. 

Poe would know what to say, he thinks. Poe Dameron, who’s got a clever line for every situation, who smiles and lights up the room, who relaxes guests when the lines go for too long or when their kids need distraction. Poe Dameron, who dances and sings and plays guitar. 

Ben owns a guitar. He’s been known to strum on it, on occasion, back in his apartment. 

He doesn’t have it on him. And that’s… probably not a great lead, for, y’know, reconnecting with the most beautiful, captivating woman he’s ever seen. In a grocery store.

What’s he supposed to do? 

Ben decides on shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and shuffling forward, staring intently at the guy in front of him as he orders, hoping that the man’s dry cleaner might’ve sewn some instructions into the back of his suit. ‘How to talk to a pretty girl when you know her but she doesn’t know you…’

He sighs. 

This is awful. 

But just as he’s beginning to lose courage, she taps on his arm again, tentatively. 

Ben turns around, and looks at her with a look that he hopes is normal and not as intense as he feels. Or as scared.

“Um,” Rey says. “I’m really sorry but… have we met before?”

“Uh,” he says. “I…”

Shit. He’s not supposed to say where he works. He signed something like an NDA when he got the job, and he isn’t supposed to reveal his character to anyone. Not in-person, not on social media; not in a box, not with a fox… 

“Because you just sound… really familiar, for some reason.” 

“You do, too,” is all Ben can manage. He brings his hand up out of his pocket, scratches at the back of his neck, wishing he could will the blush away from his cheeks and his ears. “Do you, um, live around here?”

She gives him a look, and then smiles. “Yeah. Maybe we’ve just seen each other here. I’m just two blocks away; I walk here all the time.”

God, her smile is just… it makes the evening fireworks show seem like a backfiring car. Oh, he’s definitely blushing. 

He smiles, and ducks his head. “Maybe that’s it.”

“No,” she says, and he looks up to see she’s narrowing her eyes a bit, thinking. “That’s not it. I can’t put my finger on it… did you go to UF?”

“The… university?”

She laughs, and gestures to her shirt. “Yes. The University of Florida.” 

He laughs too, and reads it—then abruptly snaps his eyes back up to her face, because he doesn’t want her to think that he’s staring at her breasts. He isn’t. He swears he isn’t. And besides, he knows from how snug that sundress fit her that they’re small enough to be completely hidden by the sweatshirt. Ben swallows, thickly, and tries to smile back at her. 

“Maybe you were in my… were you in Intro to Plant Molecular Biology class last term?”

He shakes his head. “What…? I can’t even keep a fern alive, that’s highly unlikely.”

She laughs again. “Well maybe you should take the class, then.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Ben sees the suit-wearing man ahead of him move to the side, to go wait for his drink. That’s his cue to move forward and order. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off of her, though. But he has to. 

He smiles at her, then turns and walks up to the barista. Ordering his usual massive tankard of iced espresso, Ben pays with the money in his wallet and puts the change in the tip jar. Then he, too, goes around to the counter to wait for his drink. 

This gives him a perfect angle to watch Rey as she orders. 

But not, like, in a creepy way. He swears. She’s just so… he could look at her all day, take in the sight of those long, tanned legs, the tilt of her head, the sweep of her brown hair, a little wavy and curled on the ends as if she’d had it in a bun or something. 

She’s beautiful. 

And Ben is so screwed. 

He knows that he could tell her. He knows that all it would take would be for him to… to pitch his voice a little lower, to stand taller, get into character and demand that she forsake her pitiful rebel friends and join with him… because  _ that’s  _ a way to get a girl in the middle of a Publix on a Wednesday. 

He could tell her. 

Not what he does, not who he is, but… he can say where he works. 

Rey pays and thanks the barista, and then she’s smiling as she comes over to stand beside him. The man in the suit takes his iced venti blended white chocolate mocha with four pumps of hazelnut, and Ben smiles back at her as she approaches. 

“I think I’ve figured it out,” Rey says. 

This throws him for a loop. “You have?”

“Yes,” Rey says decisively, although her head is still tilted, her eyes still a little curious, like she’s not entirely sure. “I bet you work for the school district. Because I just had about five school groups come through last week and they all blurred together after a while… You could’ve come as a chaperone, although I can’t quite place your face, but your voice… have we been on the phone before?”

He laughs, and shakes his head. “No. I work at Disney World.”

“You work at Disney World?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. So maybe you just saw me there. Heard me. Maybe.”

“What part of the park?” Rey asks. “I was there about a month ago, with friends. I’d never been before, but they insisted I ride every ride and see everything, like it won’t still be there next time we come back…”

Ben laughs a little at this. “Not a fan of rides?”

Rey makes a face. “Not particularly. I mean, I don’t hate them, I enjoy them, but… the crowds, and all the people…”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I can understand that.”

“What part of the park do you work in?” 

Ben swallows. “The, um, the Launch Bay. Area. Sometimes.”

Rey blinks at this, and then, almost immediately, she blushes.

_ Shit _ , Ben thinks. 

“Oh my god, really?” Rey exclaims. “My friends are all crazy  _ Star Wars _ fans, and they insisted we wait in line for the Kylo Ren encounter... thing?”

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

“Yeah?” Ben says, a little higher-pitched than normal.

“Yeah,” Rey nods. “It was… really intimidating.”

“Really?” Ben feels like he’s going to sink into the floor and die. Let the earth consume him. It’s all over. 

“He’s just so tall!” Rey continues, looking up at him. “I mean, you’re pretty tall, but this guy? Like a tree. And my friend, Rose, she… kind of has a bit of a  _ thing  _ for the character. He’s her favorite—she’s got the keychains and his lightsaber handle and she’s always on this one website, reading stories that… well, they’re pretty racy, from the way she blushes.”

Stories? 

Ben files this bewildering information away for a much later date. He has no idea that fans of the character would do anything like that...

Which one was Rose, though? He doesn’t have any idea which one of the other four girls who had been with her were Rose. 

He clears his throat. “And… what do you think about him?”

“About Kylo Ren?”

“Mmm,” he says, because what he wants to say is: _ Did you feel it too? When you were there, standing beside me. When you almost took my hand—his hand—did you feel what I felt? _

“He’s… I’ll be really interested to see where they take his character in the next film,” Rey says, thoughtfully. “He seemed to be utterly irredeemable in the first one. Killing his father? But then the second one… it was like he almost turned, just for a moment, when he was fighting with Kira against the guards. So they could really take it any direction, I suppose.”

Ben hears the barista call his name, and he feels his gut sink just a little; if his drink is ready, then that means he can go now. There’s no more reason to stay by her side, and keep talking to her. 

“But maybe that’s just because Kira’s my favorite character,” Rey continues. “I really love her whole arc so far. Being a nobody, with no important bloodline or lineage? It’s pretty powerful for the story, I think. So many people were convinced she was a Skywalker, but I never thought that was a requirement for being a badass. What about you? Who’s your favorite character?”

“I like Kira, too,” he says, without thinking. It’s the truth, though. “I like… I like how she fights.”

Rey laughs out loud at this, but it isn’t a mean laugh, it’s a sweet one. “Really? You’re more of an action-girl fan?”

“No, no,” he hastily amends. “I like that she can hold her own. She gets scared, but she’s always brave. But she isn’t a typical one-dimensional action-movie heroine. She holds her own. I like that.”

“Even against Kylo Ren,” Rey says. 

“Or beside him,” Ben adds, thinking about the fight scene in question. 

Rey smiles. “Yes.”

Her smile makes him feel like he’s just taken the mask off—like he can see clearly, breathe more deeply, take in the full spectrum of beauty in the world. He notices that she’s got a little pin on the strap of her blue and white striped backpack. ‘Nice to Leaf You,’ under a smiling, potted succulent. 

_ Get her number, you moron, _ a voice that sounds precariously similar to Poe’s nudges his thoughts. 

“I, um—” he begins, but then the barista calls out her name, and Rey turns and gets her own coffee. It’s a green tea matcha latte, iced, Ben notes. 

“It’s been really nice talking to you,” she says, turning and reading his name off of the side of his plastic cup: “Ben.”

“Yeah, it’s been great talking to you, too,” Ben replies. “Hey, um… I was wondering… I don’t... “

Fuck. He can’t get the words out. He isn’t suave or smooth or clever like Poe is. Flirting is excruciating at the best of times, but now, when it matters, it’s a thousand times worse. 

He can’t do it.

He’s found her, after all this time—okay, after a month, but it was a long, long month—and he can’t find the words to ask her for her number. This chance is going to pass him by. 

Rey’s digging her phone out of her pocket, though. Setting her drink back down on the counter as she unlocks the screen. 

“Here,” she says, and hands it to him, open to a New Contact screen. 

His heart leaps into his chest, soaring and diving with an indescribable feeling of elation. He carefully, carefully inputs his phone number and name.

Then, with a shy smile, he hands it back to her. 

She looks down, and saves it. 

“Let’s chat again sometime, Ben Solo,” Rey says with a smile.

“Yeah,” he says. 

She’s still looking at him, though. 

“Oh!” he gets his own phone out of his pocket, and opens it, and gets to the contact screen for her to enter her own info. 

God, he’s useless at this. Completely fucking useless—but she’s still smiling at him, and she’s still adding her number. 

_ Rey Johnson _ , the contact reads. Underneath it is her number—and her email address. 

“See you ‘round,” Rey says, as she picks her drink up and heads for the door. 

“Okay,” Ben replies, double- and triple-checking that he’s saved the contact info before pocketing his phone and picking up his own drink. 

She flashes him one more smile before she goes. 

Ben stands there, with his coffee in his hands, grinning like an idiot. 


	3. Chapter 3

****He doesn’t call her for two days.

Part of this is nerves, but part of it is… In his defense, he’s working a long shift the next day, and the day following, and by the time he gets back to his locker, backstage, he sees the missed call from her on his phone and just about has to go back to the showers, just to hide the furious blush that crosses his cheeks. Not to mention the smile.

“Whoa, buddy,” Poe says, coming over to his own locker and looking up into Ben’s face. “You’re in an awfully good mood for a long day. Your numbers come up? You win the lottery or something?”

“Or something,” Ben says back, locking his phone screen and putting it into his pocket. He doesn’t have anything against Poe, he just… doesn’t want to share quite yet.

“Have a good night, man,” Poe calls out to him, and Ben waves back, heading for the exit.

When he’s safely in his car, he pulls up the missed call again. He tells himself that his hands aren’t shaking, but it’s a lie; he taps on the voicemail button, and after a moment, Rey’s voice speaks to him:

“Hey Ben, this is Rey. We spoke at the, um, in line for coffee, the other day. I gave you my number, and you gave me yours, and… I was just wondering if you might want to go get a drink with me. I’m free tomorrow night, or the night after. Just, um, let me know! Thanks. Bye.”

As messages go, it’s not the smoothest and most seductive one in the world, but Ben doesn’t give a shit, because it’s _her_. She wants him, she wants to go on a drink with him, and he’s…

He’s working the next two nights.

Shit.

There’s a charity thing, at the park. A special event, and he’s one of the featured characters. Maybe he can leave in time to meet her somewhere, but… it won’t be dinner. And he’ll probably be too exhausted to make any kind of useful conversation. Not that he’s the best conversationalist when well-rested, but still.

Maybe she’s okay with that. He knows he wants to see her, the sooner the better. Maybe she’ll be alright with drinks.

Drinks first.

More later. If there is a later. And, God, he hopes there will be a later.

There’s only one way to find out.

He dials her number.

And she picks up on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Ben,” he says. “Ben Solo, I missed your call earlier.”

“Oh! Hello there!” Her voice sounds bright and cheery, if a bit… obscured, by some kind of… farm equipment? “I was worried for a minute that you’d given me a fake number.”

That thought hadn’t even occurred to him, but he laughs it off. “No, no. I was just at work.”

“Oh,” Rey says. “Sorry to bother you. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble.”

“No, it’s alright,” Ben says. “I keep my phone in the locker anyway, so it probably was just buzzing.”

Buzzing, like he is now, just to hear her voice.

“Well I was going to ask you if maybe you wanted to meet up for a drink sometime,” Rey says. “I’m actually out in the field right now, so apologies if the call drops, the reception can be kind of spotty.”

“No worries,” Ben says. Then it hits him on the second bounce: She just asked him out. He swallows. “I’d… really like to meet you, yeah. Where?”

Rey laughs softly, almost like she knows he almost said he’d love to meet her. “There’s a bar near my place, if you like a sort of… quiet vibe?”

“Yeah,” he says. “That sounds… great. Sure.”

“Okay,” Rey says. “Are you free tomorrow night?”

“I have a… well, there’s a work thing that’s gonna run late,” Ben says. What about the night after?”

“I’m going out of town, for a friend’s wedding,” Rey says. “But… how late does your thing run? Wait, you said you worked in the Launch Bay?”

He feels his stomach drop out from under him; has he said too much? Does she know? “Yeah…”

“Well then, I might see you tomorrow anyway,” Rey says brightly. “I’m going as a plus-one to my friend’s company event there.”

She’s coming here. She’s coming here, tomorrow, and he’s… he’s going to be robed in black, masked and… someone else, when she sees him next.

“If you’re not against meeting after, we could…”

“I’d like that,” he says. “I’d… yeah, okay.”

“Great.” He can almost hear her smile through the phone, picture her. After late events he’s usually tired and sweaty and wants to retreat to his introvert hole, otherwise known as his apartment, but for her, he can definitely make an exception.

Rey gives him the name and address of the bar, and after, Ben sits there, smiling down at his phone like he genuinely can’t believe his luck.

Maybe he _should_ go buy a lottery ticket.

* * *

Ben prepares for his evening event shift with a little more care and nerves than usual. Typically, the mask and the cowl and the robes, they help him forget himself, help him slip into this other persona. But tonight, it’s different. Half of him is afraid that she will recognize him tonight, and the other half is afraid that she won’t. He can’t decide which option is worse, and he can’t focus, either. Not until the very last moment, when he settles the helmet on his head, adjusts the weight of the cowl around his neck, and shifts his posture.

In the very last moments, just before he’s about to go out, he remembers something from the call: She’s going as someone else’s plus-one. Does that mean she’s going as someone’s date? Has he vastly misinterpreted this whole exchange, this whole feeling between them?

It’s a good thing that Kylo Ren is a character driven by insecurity and tormented by need, because he’s drawing on those very real emotions, amplifying them up to eleven tonight, and prowling out into the ballroom like he’s ready to crush the resistance with one clench of his leather-gloved fist.

The night goes well, though. Ben stalks and menaces and scowls even though he knows the helmet covers his face entirely. He feels in-character, in a way he’s never really felt before. Even the thirty-minute breaks he gets, back inside, in the cast breakroom, are focused and intense.

What does Rey expect of him?

What does she want?

Is this something else, is he making a fool of himself, wanting her, without even knowing her, without even knowing what she—

“Priority meet-and-greets are next,” the backstage manager, Gwen, says to him, snapping him out of his focused reverie. “And then you’re free for tonight. Everything going alright?”

Ben nods.

And Gwen just looks at him. “Have any of the guests been handsy tonight?”

Ben looks up at her. “No, why?”

She shrugs, holding her clipboard to her chest. “Oh, Matt just mentioned that on his exit interview.”

“Matt quit?” Ben says, thinking of the tall, blonde guy who also shares this role, and this costume. “When did that happen?”

“Yeah, apparently he’s off to become a radar technician, or something,” she says, and shrugs. “Don’t worry, though; union rules won’t push you into overtime. We’ll just have to adjust the number of daytime shifts until we can talk to casting.”

Ben nods, and looks back down at the helmet in his hands.

His last few minutes of break are almost up. Time to get out there, and get on with the show.

* * *

The meet-and-greets tonight are a vastly different crowd from the usual park guests, mostly owing to the fact that it’s an event for NASA employees and families, and that means they’re already predisposed to love outer space, which means an abundance of perfectly adorable children who are ready and willing to pledge their undying loyalty to the forces of darkness. It almost puts a tear in his eye.

One of them, a five-ish-year-old little girl, with a maze of intricate braids held back with red plastic clips and a penciled-in scar on her eyebrow, offers her a cardboard-tube lightsaber which looks to be constructed out of pipe cleaners, bits of packing peanuts, some red string and a paper-towel crossguard, the blade lovingly, yet erratically colored in with Crayola’s finest markers.

Ben accepts this, and anoints his new knight, as she solemnly pledges to seek out the rebels wherever they may be hiding.

Especially under laundry baskets.

(This, she whispers, is her favorite place to hide.)

Things like this are some of the best parts of his job. He’s always loved working with kids, which is, granted, a weird thing for a grown man to say. Especially a grown, single man, with no kids himself. But he’s an only child, and he’d always wanted siblings, and kids are fun, anyway. They’re playful and unselfconscious and totally free with their imagination.

He loves it.

And the families love it too.

The last group comes in, and Ben turns around with a practiced, menacing side-eye, catching sight of the short, asian woman, waiting to be called into the room… he recognizes her, Ben realizes. This is… and if this is… then she’s—

“You,” he says, voice mechanical and grating, blush rising in the woman’s cheeks as she steps forward. “The girl I’ve heard so much about…”

Rey is standing behind her friend, and this time, she’s the one with the cell phone out.

All at once, Ben’s worry fades away.

“H-hello,” the girl in front of him—Rose, he remembers. Her name is Rose—says.

“Where is the rebel fleet?” he demands.

Rose swallows, and stands up a little taller. “I’ll never surrender the resistance to _you_.”

“I’ll get that location from you, rebel _scum_.”

“You won’t.”

Ben takes a step closer, tilting his head down, focusing on Rose. “If you stand against us… you won’t be standing long.”

In the background, Rey’s got her hand over her mouth, trying to hold the phone steady as she chuckles.

Ben continues his banter with Rose, admiring her strength of spirit, and the intensity with which she matches him, fully in-character herself, almost, even though she’s in a gold cocktail dress and not an imperial uniform… he decides he likes Rose, and when he gets a photo with her, he obliges her with a pose that he doesn’t normally do: letting her pantomime using the Force on him. He decides that if anyone has the guts to stand up against the fearsome Kylo Ren, it’s probably Rose.

* * *

Ben gets off shift before the party itself is over, and on a whim, he showers quickly and gets dressed and slides out one of the side doors, into the party. He scans the crowd for Rey, curious, a little excited, but doesn’t immediately see her.

To his side, the family with the little girl gently negotiates past him. Ben mutters a soft apology, and the dad gives him a ‘what can you do?’ smile as he carries his absolutely conked-out daughter in his arms.

She’s still clutching at her lightsaber.

This makes Ben smile.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out.

‘Heading down there early, if you can make it?’ her text reads.

He’s back out the door and heading for his car in an instant, anticipation thrumming in his veins.

* * *

“Hey!” she says, when he slides into the bench opposite her, tucked back in a dim, cozy corner of the bar. He had scanned the room three times, nervously fearing that he’d misunderstood, or gone to the wrong place—but then she’d waved at him, and he’d smiled, and made his way over.

“Hi,” he says back, and—God, she looks gorgeous. Her eyes are still kohl-rimmed, but the soft, floaty dress she’d been wearing has been exchanged for a floral-print shirt and, Ben guesses, jeans. She’d taken her hair down, too. Ben saw that it was still a little curled, like she'd unpinned it, then brushed it out on the way there. Unpolished, but beautiful. Perfect, somehow. He liked seeing her a little undone...

“I didn’t see you tonight, were you working?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “I was… mostly backstage, though.”

“Backstage?”

“That’s what they call it, behind the scenes,” Ben clarifies. It’s a lie, but it’s a white lie. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah, it was great,” Rey says. “My friend Rose, she’s the one that works at NASA. She’s a literal rocket scientist, and when she found out there was an event, she dragged me along.”

“She seems to drag you along to a lot of these Disney things,” Ben noted, his mouth quirking into a smile.

Rey laughed, her cheeks coloring a little as she looked down at her drink. “Well, we bonded over the movies… it was great to know I wasn’t alone. Not everyone is as keen to discover when a girl’s a fan of a big space movie.”

“Well I—” Ben just barely stopped himself from saying _Well I walk around in a Kylo Ren costume all day, so I’d never judge you for that._ He cleared his throat and amended: “I think it’s not a bad thing, y’know… to be a fan of Star Wars.”

“Some people say it’s a boy thing,” Rey said, and he could just tell this was… she was ready to be rejected, because of it.

Like maybe someone had done so before.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he says softly. And then, because he hasn’t yet completely put his foot in his mouth: “I don’t think I could mistake you for a boy.”

She blushed down to he throat at this, and Ben felt his ears go warm.

He clears his throat. “So, um, you work at NASA, too? With your friend, Rose?”

Rey shakes her head. “No. I’m a graduate student. I have a research assistantship out on one of the soil-science labs.”

“Ah, that’s interesting.”

“It’s really not,” Rey says, and she grins. “I work with sand. Sand, and dirt, and compost. It’s thrilling.”

He laughs at this, too. “But you must love something about it, or you wouldn’t be doing it.”

She shrugs, and smiles. “I do. I love it, in theory. I want to make a difference, and it’s a great blend of hands-on work with science and theory. What about you? Do you love what you do?”

He shrugs, remembering what he can and cannot say. “I like it. I mean, every job has good sides and bad. I’m not much of a… people-person, I guess. So in some ways, it’s like being on stage. I get tired, at the end of a night—not that I’m too tired to be here, with you, I mean.”

Rey laughs again at this, but not unkindly. “Good. And I do know what you mean. I need to be alone, balance out all that time around people.”

Ben smiles at her, probably more tenderly and more besotted than he means to, but she blushes like she doesn’t mind.

“I’m glad you called,” he says.

“I’m glad you called back.”

They’re stuck like that, staring into each other’s eyes for a few long seconds, like a matched set. Then Ben realizes that they’re sitting here at a bar with no drinks.

“What can I get for you?” he says, straightening up, looking over at the bar and rallying his courage to go up and order.

“Oh,” Rey says, and she straightens up, too, like she’s snapped out of some kind of a… moment. “Um. Gin and Tonic?”

“You got it,” Ben says.

He slides out of the booth, and ambles over to the bar, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.

Maybe it’s just his imagination, but he can almost feel her gaze on him, somewhere between his shoulder blades, as he walks away.

* * *

He returns, triumphant, drinks in his hands, and sits back down at the table.

Rey’s got her phone out, and she grins up at him, thanks him as he sets the drinks down. She’s set out two little cocktail napkins, one in front of her and the other one, not back over across from her, but next to her.

Okay, then.

She slides over, and makes room.

“Look at this,” she says, as she pulls up a video on her phone. “You’ll probably appreciate this.”

Ben smiles at her, charmed by her enthusiasm… then swallows, thickly, as he realizes what video it is she’s showing him.

Over the background noise of the party they’ve both just left, Kylo Ren stands, tall and intimidating, threatening a woman in a gold cocktail dress.

“This is Rose,” Rey says, and Ben almost, almost says, ‘Yeah, I know,’ but catches himself in time.

Ben wants to crawl into a hole and never surface. Watching himself, even with a mask on, is excruciating. He takes a drink—another G&T, same as hers—and hopes that, when she glances up at his face, she’ll mistake the flush on his cheeks for a response to the alcohol.

_“I’ll get that location from you, rebel scum.”_

_“You won’t.”_

“I wonder why they don’t have someone playing Kira, at things like this,” Rey asks, as the video gets shaky—this had been when Rey laughed, Ben knows.

“It’s easier to cast performers for mask work,” Ben answers, hopefully not too quickly. “They can match for height, build, posture…”

“Huh,” Rey says, turning off her phone and picking up her drink. “That’s interesting. Have you ever thought of doing something like that?”

Ben actually laughs out loud at that. There’s no answer he can give her, so he takes another drink, grateful that the bartender hadn’t skimped at all on the gin.

“I don’t think I ever could,” Rey continues. “Too scary.”

“Why?”

She looks up at him. “Well… knowing the right thing to say. Although, I read a thing somewhere, before we went the first time? And it said that the Kylo Ren guy doesn’t speak at all, they use some kind of a remote soundboard thing.”

Ben shakes his head. “No, it—well I mean, don’t you think it would be too complicated to try and do that, and have him walk around the park?”

“That’s what I said!” Rey agrees. “Well, anyway. I suppose you’ve probably signed some sort of an NDA, and couldn’t tell me if the guy in there was talking anyway. Hey, do you know him?”

Ben gives her a close-mouthed smile, and mimes zipping his mouth, tucking the invisible key in his pocket. Rey laughs.

This feels so good, so easy and uncomplicated, talking to her like this. Even though he’s still hovering somewhere around the 35% anxiety level, that’s actually not half bad for a date.

The conversation shifts naturally to the party, and they slip into an easy, almost teasing banter about work functions, and the joys of seeing colleagues on the sauce. Ben gets up again at one point, ostensibly to use the bathroom, but he brings back a second set of drinks for them. Rey admonishes him, tells him that it was her turn to pay, and Ben tells her—some inspired voice, some remnant of his impossibly smooth Uncle Lando’s wisdom—that she can buy them next time.

Rey grins even wider at this. And Ben feels like he could get lost in her pretty eyes, and never come up for air.

* * *

The night ends with a kiss.

Ben doesn’t see it coming, doesn’t expect it, but after both of them start yawning just after eleven—teasing the other, laughing at how old they are now that they can’t keep up with their old college drinking experiences—he walks her to her car, parked just two blocks away.

Ben’s is parked farther away, five blocks in the opposite direction.

It’s not an inconvenience.

“Good night,” he says softly. He wants to touch her, so he gives in, and lifts his hand to do nothing more than brush her hair back from her face, just a little.

“Good night,” she says back, tilting her head the smallest amount like she… like she wants him to cup her face with his hand.

He can’t do it, though. Because what if he’s reading everything wrong again. What if she’s just friendly, just nice. What if he’s—

She silences his fretful thoughts with a press of her mouth against his.

It’s chaste, and simple, a kiss that lasts just a heartbeat.

His hand finds the side of her face, and he cups her jaw in it. It fits—she fits—like she’s always meant to be there.

Slowly, Rey pulls back from him, eyes searching his face, a little nervous. Ben smiles.

Then she smiles, too.

“Good night,” she says again.

“Good night.”

He only know two words now. Three, if you count her name.

She gets into her car, and he watches her drive away.

For the first time in his life, he feels content. Unfettered, peaceful.

He smiles the whole way back to his car. Smiles, driving the whole way home. And by the time he gets there, there’s already two texts from Rey on his phone.


End file.
